“Tornado [Cash] is dead, but privacy won’t die,” an ether enthusiast said on X after Oxbow’s Ethereum privacy tools went live on April 1 to facilitate on-chain privacy while dissociating from illicit funds.
The sentiment is echoed by the early uptake for the privacy pools, which have processed 238 user deposit transactions, totaling 67.49 ETH in the first three days. The new tool has received a thumbs-up from Ethereum founder Vitalik Buterin, who was one of the first to deposit ETH.
These privacy pools leverage zero-knowledge proofs and commitment schemes to facilitate ether deposits and subsequent withdrawals, in part or whole, while breaking the link between deposits and withdrawal addresses. Think of it like having a specialized bank account to send money while hiding your identity or how much money you have.
The architecture comprises the contract layer for managing assets, the zero-knowledge layer to ensure privacy and the association set provider layer that ensures compliance by vetting funds.
The three layers work together to preserve privacy while screening transactions for links to illicit actors such as hackers, phishers and scammers. The screening is dynamic, meaning a deposit is accepted but later found malicious, it can be removed.
Privacy pools are non-custodial, ensuring users retain full control over their funds, allowing even rejected deposits to move back funds to their original addresses.
As of now, the deposit limits are set between 0.1 ETH and 1 ETH, with the promise to increase the same after the initial battle testing period.
“This is only the beginning. The road to making privacy normal again is long and exciting, and we can’t do it alone!” 0xbow said on X.